Nowhere Man First Chapter - Pantera Press...as I do, you’ll love Nowhere Man. It’s a gripping, edge-of-your-seat financial thriller, packed with surprising twists. I couldn’t

NOWHEREMAN

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page i

ii — JOHN M GREEN

A note from the publisherDear Reader,

If you enjoy riveting stories with engaging characters and strong writing,as I do, you’ll love Nowhere Man. It’s a gripping, edge-of-your-seatfinancial thriller, packed with surprising twists. I couldn’t put it down…And that’s not because John’s my father or because when I was muchyounger I named the novel’s main character after my favourite videogame character! Nowhere Man is a great read.

Did you know that big-name authors, John Grisham and J.K. Rowling,got rejected many times by publishers? John Green’s own experience ofthis was one of the many factors that inspired Pantera Press, and our aimto become a great new home for Australia’s next generation of best-loved authors.We think we’re well on the way.

But there’s even more to us… Simply by enjoying our books, you’ll alsobe contributing to our unique approach: good books doing good thingsTM. Wehave a strong ‘profits for philanthropy’ foundation, focussed on literacy,quality writing, the joys of reading and fostering debate.

So let me mention one program we’re thrilled to support: Let’s Read. It’salready helping 100,000 pre-schoolers across Australia develop a love ofbooks and the building blocks for learning how to read and write. We’reexcited that Let’s Read now also operates in remote Indigenouscommunities in Far North Queensland, Cape York, and Torres Strait. Let’sRead was developed by the Centre for Community Child Health and it’sbeing implemented in partnership with The Smith Family.

Simply buying this book will help us support these kids. Thank you.

Want to do more? If you visit www.PanteraPress.com/Donate you canpersonally donate to help The Smith Family expand Let’s Read, find outmore about this great program, and also more on the other programsPantera Press supports.

Please enjoy Nowhere Man.

And for news about our other books, sample chapters, author interviewsand much more, please visit our website: www.PanteraPress.com

Happy reading,

Alison Green

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page ii

NOWHEREMAN

If only she knew what he knew…

JOHN M. GREEN

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page iii

First published in 2010 by Pantera Press Pty Limitedwww. PanteraPress.com

Text Copyright © John M Green, 2010John M Green has asserted his moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

Design and typography Copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2010PanteraPress, the three-slashed colophon device, good books doing good things, a great new homefor Australia’s best-loved authors, WHY vs WHY, and making sense of everything are trademarks ofPantera Press Pty Limited.

This book is copyright, and all rights are reserved.

We welcome your support of the author’s rights, so please only buy authorised editions.

This is a work of fiction, though it is based on some real events. Names, characters, organizations,dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and anyresemblance to actual people, living or dead, firms, events or locales is coincidental.

Without the publisher’s prior written permission, and without limiting the rights reserved undercopyright, none of this book may be scanned, reproduced, stored in, uploaded to or introduced into aretrieval or distribution system, including the internet, or transmitted, copied or made available in anyform or by any means (including digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, sound or audiorecording, or text-to-voice). This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of tradeor otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover otherthan that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequentrecipient. This edition of this book is not for sale in Europe.

Please send all permission queries to: Pantera Press, P.O. Box 357 Seaforth. NSW Australia 2092 or [email protected]

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978-0-9807418-3-4

Editor: Bill ThompsonCover and internal design: Luke Causby, Blue Cork Cover Image: PhotoLibraryAuthor Photo: Courtesy, Phil Carrick, The Australian Financial ReviewTypesetting by Kirby JonesPrinted and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

Pantera Press policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made fromwood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform tothe environmental regulations of the country of origin.

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page iv

For Jenny, Alison & Martin

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page v

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like bananas.”— Groucho Marx (1890–1977)

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfullyexercised over any member of a civilised community,against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own

good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient.”— John Stuart Mill (1862)

The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.”— Hamm, in Samuel Beckett’s one-act play, Endgame (1958)

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page vii

1

THIS CITY DOESN’T grow on you, it grows in you.It snatches your breath. It scratches its scarlet nailsdown your back so you squirm for more. Sydney is

heaven without dying. But in eight minutes, for Sonya, itwould become hell.

The bush track clung alongside the foreshore, a seductivestretch of dirt and rocks and water views. The professorpounded it daily so, even without checking her watch, sheknew she’d been running fifty minutes. But after last night,who cared about time?

Dribbles of sweat kept filling her smile lines. It had beentheir first sex in three weeks, true, but what did she expectafter nine, no, ten years. As Sonya was convincing herselfonce again that Michael wasn’t a lousy lover, the lace frondof a fern camouflaged a sandstone outcrop and she almosttripped. Regathering her balance and her pace, she remindedherself that in the long spaces between the sex Michael wasstill, well, a gentleman; most at ease sniffing a vintage claretor cradling a tumbler of good scotch—no ice, no water—and drawing back on one of his antique smoking pipes. And

nowhere GJ_Nowhere Finals 9/05/10 11:29 AM Page 1

considerate. The word “companion” didn’t endear itself toher, so she pushed it away.

She leapt, almost flew, over a tree root that caught her eyejust in time but her shoulder swiped against a split branch ofa eucalypt.

To her, Michael was a Mr Cool in a gallant, nineteenth-century kind of way yet “cold fish” was the epithet moreoften whispered round their circle of friends; these daysmore a semi-circle, and mostly hers. To them, Michaelsoaked himself in solitude. “Reserve” was a word conceivedfor him, or so a friend had said once in Sonya’s earshot. Itwas true he rarely sought friendships and when on oddoccasions they were offered, he seldom accepted them.

For him, familiarity bred contentment, albeit one focusedon few people and fewer things. Mostly, Michael was a self-contained, tight-lipped man who brushed off the prevailingfondness for approval or intimacy. Cool… yes. Detached attimes… oh, yes. But for Sonya, also thoughtful… decent.Integrity and a quiet generosity gently shimmered from him,in soft beats.

He stuck to his guns in most things, even in his businessaffairs. His work since she’d known him was as a stocks andbonds trader operating from home, a perfect cocoon for histemperament. He’d chosen it well, she decided. Intellectualstimulation, the adrenaline of the markets, and no people.Plus, keeping yourself away from the daily hub-bub helpedyou filter out the noise and maintain perspective, a lesson hesaid he had gleaned from his earlier days freelancing as ajournalist.

He claimed it was a useful tool in trading on the markets

2 — JOHN M GREEN


as well as in everyday life but Sonya was never as convincedabout the virtues of isolation. It did have its moments, likewhen she powered her motor bike down after a day’slecturing and she’d find him at their grey sliver of fence thatoverlooked the beach, ready for their ritual chat over afreshly-poured wine or whisky. She never knew if it was hisfirst drink since alcohol didn’t affect him as much her. Sonyawas tall and slim so her vulnerability was a metabolism andfitness thing, nothing to do with her being a blonde as afriend once joked. As she’d head through the house to joinMichael at the back fence, she’d try to guess from thewafting aroma what he had cooking. As well as a journalist,he’d also worked as a chef. What jobs hadn’t he done? She’dpass by the dining table, usually set for two, often with aspray of fresh tulips. Like last night.

For Sonya tulips went with everything, even her joblecturing in business studies. It wasn’t just their cheeky cupshape or their splashes of vivid colour. It was also the historyof the manic speculation they’d fired up four centuries ago.Every year, she got a kick out of telling her students howRembrandt earned less for his 1640s masterpiece, TheNightwatch, than the hammer price a single Viceroy tulipbulb got knocked down for at auction.

There were other kindnesses: gifts, and especiallyconversations. But Michael kept that side of him to theirprivate world; the modern fetish for public displays ofaffection, even warmth, repelled him.

Where would she have been without him? Livingcomfortably on a university salary, for sure, but not in theirbeach house… well, hers actually… but that was another

NOWHERE MAN — 3


story. One she had certainly rationalised but never quiteworked out.

A barbed sapling brushed against her but she palmed itoff, just as she’d done for years to the gibes and gossip.Like Michael she didn’t care for the sneering but, truth betold, she yearned that he would occasionally display hisemotions so others could see him as she did. Her latemother had always stereotyped him. That he was soreticent, so uptight, because he was British. It wasn’t that,Sonya was sure, but there was something. An itch shecouldn’t scratch.

Sonya knew she should speak to him about it, and shewould.

Today.Six minutes…Heck, did she really care if he was reserved? Live for the

moment! And with him, there were great moments. Shebrushed back some loose strands of hair, for a change blaséthat the whole world could see she had one ear with a lobeand one without. It was an oddity she normally covered upwith longer hair, even though Michael claimed he found itendearing.

How often had she engaged in these same arguments withherself? She would definitely raise it all with him today. Forsure. What better time, now that he’d agreed, finally, to ababy? Thirty-five on her last birthday, she had certainly beenhearing her body. Tick… tick…

The early morning sun slanted through the treetops,leaping from branch to branch like flames. She stopped atthe viewing platform, drawing in the crisp sea-spray of the

4 — JOHN M GREEN


sou’-easterly and watching the wind-shadow skip across thewater. An augury perhaps.

Her thoughts lingered, imagining that the rhythmic swellof the water was Michael, his chest rising and falling just asit had been when she’d slipped out of their bed thatmorning.

Their relationship had always had its edges. Until lastnight, Michael’s stand-off against children, though alwaysgracious, had been as hard as flint. Despite that, comparedto the ditch her first marriage had careened into, her decadewith Michael was a yellow brick road. There were theunexpected things. Like last night: “Let’s go barging on aFrench canal,” he’d said, “before our baby.” Before ourbaby, a phrase lightly tossed in like a vinaigrette, andwithout any fanfare despite her years of badgering.

Surprisingly, she’d almost not registered it; the meremention of an overseas trip had thrown her completely off-guard. After they’d quit New York for Sydney nearly nineyears ago and despite their, or rather, his money, they’d onlyever flown together within Australia. Never internationally.He, on the other hand. God! she thought, as she turned backonto the track, Michael was such a frequent flyer the airportsecurity people probably knew his shoe size. He must havea trillion international frequent flyer miles but, she remindedherself, she had never enjoyed a single one.

His many, too many, business trips were fleeting, alwaysrushed. Inevitably he returned dishevelled, as if he’d justbeen trekking for thirty days in Nepal rather than on athree-day flit to Los Angeles or some other business capital.In the beginning, she’d stressed herself about these trips—

NOWHERE MAN — 5


what wife wouldn’t?—but time wore her down andtolerating them simplified her life, despite her mother’sfinger-wagging: one failed marriage was enough, she’drepeatedly warned.

Four minutes…A child. Sonya hurtled off the end of the track and her

shoes dug into the white sand, so fine and clean it squeakedas it stopped her short. She slipped off her sweatshirt andwrapped it round her waist for her cool-down. Her redleotard top was crimson with sweat and her heartbeat waseven outpacing her mind.

She’d come round the headland and this end of the beachwas tapped in behind, sheltered from the south. Here thepalms and eucalypts stood motionless. The barnacled boatsmoored in close were rocking imperceptibly from the risingtide and there was scarcely a jangle from their glintinghalyards. The sun continued to chin itself above the horizonand paint colour onto the eastern cliffs, giving the finalcrescent of moon a razzle of gold.

She watched the water nudge against the beach, up andback. It hissed up the sand leaving a froth of lace for theseagulls to trample. As her breath slowed she watched thegrey scavengers fluffing up their wings and poking theirbeaks underneath, picking out lice for their breakfastappetisers. A fledgling with a pink-grey beak and legs andspotted wings scrabbled to the water’s edge and dipped itshead in and out several times, shaking it in between.

Apart from a drifting foam of cloud, it was a still winter’smorning. Sonya strode over the sand for her final stretch,certain this would be a good day… a good year.

6 — JOHN M GREEN


But in three minutes, she’d discover how wrong she was.At the far end of the beach, the familiarity, the odd

ordinariness of their grey slatted fence sandwiched betweenmuch grander walls caused her to question Michael’s suddennew leaf and by the time she reached the boardwalk, she wasstamping the sand out of her soles as well as her scepticism.

Once again she questioned how she’d lasted so long witha man so guarded, so private. Obscurity and vaguenessabout his past hovered around Michael like a cloud ofsummer sand flies but though it was irritating, years ofpractice had taught Sonya to swat it off as yet anothertolerable eccentricity. No longer. Not from today. Today theitch would be scratched.

She recalled how weeks after she’d moved into his NewYork apartment on Central Park West, she’d knocked hispassport from his desk and two strange dried flowersfluttered out of it to the floor. They were shrivelled, brittleand brown though she guessed they’d once been white.Daisies perhaps. As she slid a page of the passportunderneath the wilted blooms, carefully so they wouldn’tdisintegrate, she’d wondered if they were a memento. But ofwhat? Or whom? She’d never asked. Flipping through thetattered passport that day, she saw some pages were ripped.The corner with his birth-date was gone. Cut or torn, shecouldn’t tell. But for the first time she saw his full name:Michael Will Hunt. His name was a sentence.

One minute…She unlatched her gate smack on what she assumed was

7 AM. Courtesy of Ralph their pitch-black Labrador, thetime seemed obvious. Ralph was not normally a barker but

NOWHERE MAN — 7


what usually got him yapping at this time was the racketfrom the builders a few doors up. Six days a week it wasalways the same. On the dot of seven the noise dam from theconstruction site legally sluiced open.

But wait. Apart from Ralph and the squawk of a seagull,and the hiss of the tide, there was no sound. No builders.Not yet. Sonya checked her watch: five before seven.

Something caught her eye and she jerked her head up atthe house to see that the glass double-doors of their atticbedroom were ajar, swinging out onto their balcony.

Michael must be up but, at anything before 7:30, thatwas almost unheard of.

A lorikeet flashed past her, so close the green wingtipbrushed her cheek. The bird perched on top of the left-handbalcony door and cocked its head, a scatter of sunlightfluorescing its blues and mauves.

As Sonya unconsciously wiped her cheek, the bird gave araucous squawk and shot a repulsive stream of grey shitdown the glass door panel. Sonya was not religious, yet thesmear roused in her an ancient echo of parents daubingblood on their doors to ward away the angel of death.

A scatter of sand flew off her shoe as she kicked open theback gate but Sonya’s eyes, puzzled, stayed fixed on theswinging doors upstairs. She almost tumbled over Ralph,needing to stabilise herself against the gate post. She startedto reward the big lump of a dog with a scratch under hisblack muzzle but strangely he didn’t roll over and offer his

8 — JOHN M GREEN


belly as he usually did. He simply pulled away from her andloped back toward the house.

Why was Michael up so early? She bent over, still huffinga little, her hands on her hips, and noticed her toe hadjabbed into a small brown mound on the grass. DamnRalph! She snapped her foot back from it, but on eyeing itclosely she saw it was a knock of Michael’s pipe tobacco.She squatted to test if he’d already been out here thismorning but it was soggy, the same as the grass, and she alsonoticed how the lone track of her footprints leaving thehouse an hour earlier still lingered on the dew. No, Michaelhad not been outside. It was the same with Ralph’s pawprints though she could see they were mostly in a crazy circledirectly below the bedroom balcony, as if he had beenchasing his tail. She tugged her ear, the one with no lobe.Something wasn’t right.

Ralph came back to her and snatched at her sleeve,tugging her toward the house. A little jittery, Sonya shookhim off, her eyes focused back up at the swaying doors. Evenif Michael had opened them and come outside, why wouldsuch a stickler for neatness leave them unlatched like this?Maybe the phone had rung or he’d suddenly rememberedsomething inside? She wiped the sudden clamminess of herpalms on her sweatshirt.

Every morning when Sonya returned from her run, Ralphwould feign sneaking inside under her guard, knowing thatinside the house was off-limits—one of Michael’s manyexasperating rules. But today Ralph showed no sign ofplayfulness and simply plonked himself at the stoop,covering his head with his paws.

NOWHERE MAN — 9


As Sonya headed upstairs, a low growl rumbled fromdeep in Ralph’s throat. Halfway up, her nostrils flared intoquestion as a faint, almost odourless smell insinuated the air.Old socks? Sweat? She ran her fingers through her hair andalso over her tights to check if the parrot had depositedanything when it flashed past, but no. She pulled theshoulder of her sweatshirt to her nose, but it wasn’t thateither. Ralph? She sniffed again and turned her head back tosee if he’d snuck in behind her but he was still at the door,watching her through his paws.

She padded up the stairs. At the turn-back, she started tomake out murmurings from the bedroom TV. But with thebreeze outside picking up, the balcony doors started to bangand the hallway door slammed shut.

“Hey!” she called. “Are you trying to bust the glass?”There was no response. It must be that the TV was too

loud, she decided.Something held back her hand from turning the door knob.

Eventually she turned it and slowly pushed open the door.But Michael wasn’t there. Guessing he’d be in the

bathroom, she switched off the TV. But instead of silence orhis radio blaring from the bathroom, all she heard wereRalph’s growls drifting up from the garden.

Sonya slid open the bathroom door expecting to findMichael semi-dozed and with his undershorts splayedaround his ankles. There was no Michael. “This isn’t funny,”she called out, her cry ricocheting uselessly off the tiles.

The lingering airlessness she’d felt on the stairs was nowinvading the bedroom as if it was stalking her. Herheartbeats hammered into her ears and her legs felt weak.

10 — JOHN M GREEN


She twisted round to Michael’s dressing room and yankedits door open so hard it banged against the wall, gouging outa chunk of white plaster which crumbled onto the floor.

Her stomach compressed into a fist that squeezed the airup and out of her lungs. Had Ralph seen something… hadhe been warning her?

She spun round like a drunk and ran downstairs. Thedoor to Michael’s office was wide open. He never left it likethat. And that odour… it was stronger, mustier, like themouldy crust of an overripe brie cheese that’s been left outin the air too long. Or truffles… Michael loved blacktruffles, she remembered. He said he’d spent a season inFrance once sniffing them out with his own pig. Or maybeit was a dog. Either way, she didn’t care. Not now.

Confused and panicked, Sonya stood framed in thedoorway. It was more like an office furniture catalogue thanMichael’s office. His beechwood desk was almost bare,scattered only with a few loose papers. His leather chair wasswivelled to face toward the window, as if he had turned hisback on her. Even his beloved ashtray was empty. Shewalked over and lifted it to her nose for a whiff of him butit was cold antiseptic metal.

All that was left was an unplugged computer screen andhis music player. She pulled open a desk drawer. Empty. Sheleant under the desk. A depression in the carpet markedwhere his computer console had been and a grey powercable snaked itself uselessly from nowhere to nowhere else,neither rearing nor ready to go.

How to explain it, other than the obvious? Maybe hermother had been right all along.

NOWHERE MAN — 11


She stared blankly past his chair and out the window,frantic for a flash of inspiration. The edge of a cloud blockedthe sun just for a moment and when the gloom passed, abrassy glint sparked up from the floor just between the walland the desk. In a daze, she stooped for the gold-coloureddisk and without thinking slid it into the slot in Michael’ssound system as if tidiness were a substitute for action.

Suddenly she tore out to the garage. But both the car andthe bike were still there. Unsure if she was pleased ordisappointed she circled round the ancient SAAB, its greyenamel absorbing her despair. She unlocked the trunk but itweighed on her fingers. She’d read stories… seen movies…Eventually she lifted it. Apart from an umbrella, an oldtheatre program and a credit card slip from thesupermarket, the space was empty.

She exhaled with a force as if she hadn’t taken a newbreath since she’d been upstairs in the bedroom. She slappedher side. Of course the vehicles would be here. Michaeldidn’t drive. She drove the SAAB when the two of them wereout together or if it was raining. The bike was her workhorse, to weave her through peak hour traffic to and fromcampus. Actually, it was more than that. A twin-cylinderDucati MH900 evoluzione, it was a tomato-red speedmachine. But the three hundred kilograms of grunt she lovedso much were as cold as she now felt.

As she lumbered back upstairs to their bedroom, shechecked her watch. Again. An hour. She’d only been gone anhour.

She stood at the door rocking on the balls of her feet,indecisive, and finally crossed the room to stop the doors

12 — JOHN M GREEN


banging. Was she imagining it or were they waving farewell?She pushed them open to engage the latches, maybe to letfresh air in to flush the room. She was tempted to clean offthe lorikeet shit with a tissue from the box beside the bedbut left it there. As a marker.

She turned back into the room and spotted something onthe bed, half-tucked under her pillow. It was a note.

Her eyes closed for a moment to calm her raging,thumping pulse but it was futile.

She dragged in her breaths. Her legs had barely thestrength to carry her to the edge of the bed. She sat and,pointlessly, one hand tried steadying the other as she read it.

My darling Sonya,

Sorry our bliss had to end like this—with ascratched note—but I could hardly face you.

We were a great couple. You know that.

And though you’ll always have the memory of ourlast May Day together and our walk to Calvary,without you I’ll be knowhere.

Your love,

Mike

Blinking back sudden tears, denial scratched at her eyes andher heart. Last night, finally, he’d relented about a child.

NOWHERE MAN — 13


And a trip. Hardly actions if he was planning an exit, sheargued with herself. He had to be in trouble. Kidnapped,perhaps. But by whom? And why? And why this note but noransom demand?

Last night. Had it been just a decoy? A cruel lure. To lullher? “The bastard!” she spat out aloud.

Her mother had been right. She had seen through himjust like she’d sussed out Charles, Sonya’s first husband. Yetnow it seemed, she had wasted all those years by staunchlydefending shit number two.

“We were a great couple,” said the note.Were… The word slapped her hard.Her life had already shifted into the past tense.What would she tell their friends? Her friends, she

corrected herself.She edged herself off the bed. This, she thought, clenching

the note in front of her face… this was not Michael. Shegripped it harder to prevent her hands trembling but thatmade it worse.

Her bank loan. What about that? Surely Michaelwouldn’t just walk out and leave her in the…

She inched to the window and looked out across the waterbut tears blurred her vision and her mind struggled to focus.

There was something… She stepped back and againlowered herself onto the rim of the bed. She pulled up acorner of the blue bed sheet to wipe her eyes but it was stilllaced with last night… instead, she crumpled it in her handand drew it up to her nose.

“My darling Sonya…” Her breath caught but knew shehad to read on. “My…” Her eyes welled up but she pushed

14 — JOHN M GREEN


herself through the blur. It wasn’t his usual old-stylecopperplate but it was still Michael’s handwriting. Yet thewords… they weren’t his. Michael did not write this.

The maelstrom roiled around her and she fell back on thebed, clawing at the sheet.

He didn’t write this…A baby… The house… He wouldn’t leave her.But he had.

NOWHERE MAN — 15



ABOUT JOHN M. GREEN

When it dawned on John that what got him up in themorning was writing not his day job, he quit the job.

Until then he was an executive director in a leadinginvestment bank. Much earlier he’d been a lawyer, a partnerin two major law firms.

He is a well-known business writer and commentator andhis writing has appeared in a variety of publications inAustralia and overseas including: The Australian, TheAustralian Financial Review, Company Director, BusinessSpectator, The Age, The Bulletin, the UK’s Financial Timesand Canada’s Director Journal.

Nowhere Man is John’s first novel.Today, as well as writing, he is a board member of two

stock-exchange-listed corporations and some not-for-profits, as well as a co-founder of Pantera Press.

He lives with his wife, a sculptor, in Sydney. They havetwo adult children who share their passions for the arts,books, business and philanthropy, as well as for theshimmering waters of an extraordinary city.


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Nowhere Man First Chapter - Pantera Press...as I do, you’ll love Nowhere Man. It’s a gripping, edge-of-your-seat financial thriller, packed with surprising twists. I couldn’t